Big Hero 6 Could Be Disney’s First Animated Marvel Film

It appears as if the Japanese superhero team will make the leap to the big screen as the long-rumored Marvel project in development at Walt Disney Animation Studios. The script-tracking website reports Kristina Reed (Kung Fu Panda) will produce.

Generally well-informed fan site Blue Sky Disney, which has been following (and teasing) an unnamed Marvel/Disney animated team-up for a while now, contends Winnie the Pooh director Don Hall pitched Big Hero 6 to Disney/Pixar’s John Lasseter and will helm the film. It could open as early as 2014.

Created by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau, Big Hero 6 spun out of Alpha Flight in 1998 as a superhero team sanctioned by the Japanese government to protect the country from threats. The team, whose members include the sometimes-villainous Silver Samurai, sometimes-X-Man Sunfire, boy genius Hiro Takachiho and his synthetic bodyguard Baymax, and the magical purse-wielding Honey Lemon, has starred in two miniseries, one in 1998 by Scott Lobdell and Gus Vasquez, and the second in 2008 by Chris Claremont and David Nakayama (it’s the second that’s being collected in September).